Mystery shops are a huge part of any dealership’s success. They give you a live, authentic look into employee performance that everyone can use to celebrate great work and identify concrete skills to develop.
But like anything else, they’re an investment that needs to pay off in the long run. OEMs require them to protect their products and make sure their brand is well-represented, but are these freebies a substitute for Phone Ninjas’ mystery shops? Isn’t that a duplication of effort and expense?
Not at all! While OEM shops are important, they’re extremely narrow in focus and don’t evaluate any of the key skills that drive your sales numbers. In fact, our dedicated dealership mystery shops cover all sorts of critical areas that your OEM partners wouldn’t even begin to know how to measure!
Focus on the Customer
Phone Ninjas’ mystery shops are performed by highly-trained professionals who work closely with your people and know your dealership inside and out. Not only do we evaluate core skills and strategy alignment, but we also tailor our work to match your local community and customer base.
While our focus is much broader than just the items we’ll discuss today, here’s an overview of the core targets of our mystery shop process.
1. Deliverability
This is one that often gets overlooked: the ability of your communications, both digital and traditional, to reach the customer. Emails are of little use if they end up in a junk folder, and if a customer doesn’t check their voicemail often (only 7% of people prefer it these days!), your messages will not land at the right time.
Our mystery shoppers always ensure your team is double-checking every customer’s preferred method of contact, basic information, and best times to reach them. These little details are easy to forget in the heat of the moment, but they can be the difference between a sale and a fail.
2. Quality
The overall quality of your team’s performance is not judged by your OEM’s mandated mystery shops. Consistency of delivery, customer service, and band alignment simply aren’t a priority outside of a manufacturer’s narrow focus.
Phone Ninjas does a deep dive to get a complete picture of how your employees are doing with their overall presentation, and not just during single calls. We ensure your customer service quality is high day in and day out, and we back it up with personalized coaching and support for individual employees.
We also check to make sure relevant customer information is entered into your CRM system all the time, giving your sales team a deep database of qualified leads.
3. Timeliness
The timing of all aspects of a sales pitch can make or break even the most factually correct delivery. Phone Ninjas’ mystery shoppers are well prepared to accurately grade the timeliness of each part of a sales call to ensure your team members are efficiently and consistently moving toward closing.
In addition, we’re watching out for damaging errors that can easily derail a sale so our coaches can quickly address any issues. Coaches then follow up with each employee individually for supplemental training to make sure your entire team is performing at the top of their game.
We’re also checking on the timeliness of your business’s ability to return calls and internet contacts from customers. A shocking 23% of businesses don’t regularly return these contacts, which is simply leaving money on the table. On the other hand, companies that tried to return these contacts within one hour were seven times more likely to connect with a lead.
4. Following Through On Commitments
Follow-through is a central component of building customer loyalty and closing as many sales as possible. We make sure your agents are following up on promises consistently during our mystery shops and tying their performance directly to your KPIs. Few things cost you business faster than not delivering on promises and returning customer contacts.
5. Wording and Cadence
We offer our basic sales scripts for free because everyone deserves to have a great framework, but the real secret to success with any script is customization and practice. Mastery never comes quickly or easily, even to your most talented salespeople.
On one hand, adhering to the script is essential for prioritizing important sales strategy elements. We’ve spent years honing our scripts to ensure that your people never leave revenue on the table and your customers always feel supported and nurtured toward a sale.
But on the other hand, no one likes talking to a CS rep who’s obviously working off a script—especially if they’ve become bored over time. Our short, individual coaching sessions with each employee are all it takes to keep delivery fresh. We also help tweak scripts to align them with each employee’s personality. There are a few ways we do this:
- Including local vernacular to connect with your community.
- Adapting scripts to best match each employee’s personal vocabulary, vocal cadence, accent, etc.
- Coaching employees who have difficulty with natural delivery and cadence.
Balancing consistency of message with personalizing delivery to maximize naturalness and enthusiasm takes time to get right, and our mystery shoppers are especially attuned to how this is going. They forward comments and observations to our coaches so they can dial in performance and develop everyone’s delivery.
Phone Ninjas Delivers Where Others Pack Up
The mystery shops mandated by your OEM partners do help you, but let’s face it: those are primarily useful to your partners. You need someone in your corner who’s carefully and continually monitoring the growth and consistency of your team.
Phone Ninjas is just a call or a keystroke away, so please reach out! We’re so confident you’ll see the advantages of our approach that we’ll give you two free, no-commitment mystery shops grading your current phone and internet game.
